Trump wants to take us all the way back to 2023…
“Every nation gets the government it deserves”…
Jim Rickards issues an urgent warning for all investors…
Dear Reader,
The heartless, miserly president issued his 2026 budget proposal Friday.
He proposes to ladle out a mere $1.7 trillion in discretionary spending next year.
His request would butcher an inconceivable $163 billion from the federal budget — some 23% of this year’s discretionary outlays.
Thus this Scrooge would heave the nation all the way back to the dark, unlit days of… 2023.
How the United States can possibly endure 2023 quantities of discretionary spending, I do not pretend to know.
The sob-mongers among us — as a matter of course — wail the proposal would lay waste to “the poor.”
Out Come the Violins
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) labeled the proposal “a betrayal of working people from a morally bankrupt president.”
The good senator thundered that “Democrats are going to fight this heartless budget with everything we’ve got.”
Sen. Patricia Murray (D-WA) yells that:
This budget proposal would set our country back decades by decimating investments to help families afford the basics, to keep communities safe, and to ensure America remains the world leader in innovation and lifesaving research.
Ms. Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, howls that:
This is the latest repudiation of some of what he promised on the campaign trail, in terms of being a president who was going to seek to serve people struggling at the margins of the economy.
“Scorched Earth”
Thus Politico labels the president’s proposal a “scorched earth” plan.
The New York Times moans that the proposal equals “slashing domestic spending to the lowest level of the modern era.”
Does not the modern era incorporate the year 2023?
The Times refers to discretionary spending in proportion to the gross domestic product.
The paper of record informs us that the president’s proposal would reduce discretionary spending to 1960s levels.
Yet were not the 1960s the “guns and butter” 1960s?
They were in fact. Yet let it pass.
It’s Really About Protecting the Bureaucracy
Should the proposal carry forward? Then you can expect all species of calamity to befall us.
The Times:
Mr. Trump… recommended striking billions in funds that help finance clean water projects. And the president reserved some of his deepest cuts for education, health and science, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would see their budgets cut by around half.
Among the funding-starved would be:
The United States Department of State (down 83%)… The Environmental Protection Agency (down 54.5%)… The Department of Labor (down 34.9%)… The Department of the Interior (down 30.5%)… The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (down 24.3%).
Thus I encourage you to spare a tender thought for the poor beset Washington bureaucrat.
He will be forced upon lean rations… should the president and Mr. Musk triumph.
Which government agency would the president’s proposal fatten?
The United States Defense Department.
The president proposes $1 trillion in spending — a 13% augmentation of the Pentagon’s 2026 budget.
A Drop in the Bucket
Of course… the $1.7 trillion proposal is restrained to discretionary spending, so-called.
Yet discretionary spending represents but a fraction of the federal expenditure.
The heaping majority of federal outlays go channeling towards “mandatory” spending.
Mandatory spending is spending consecrated largely to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest payments upon the national debt.
Last year, combined federal spending ran to $6.8 trillion. Yet discretionary spending totalled a mere $1.8 trillion.
Mandatory spending constituted the remaining $5 trillion.
This year the United States government will misspend some $7 trillion.
The same United States government is projected to misspend $7.2 trillion next year.
Thus the president’s 2026 “scorched earth” spending proposal reduces to a campfire — and a limited campfire at that.
Yet the spenders warn of Chaos and Old Night should it carry forth… which it will not.
Trump’s Proposal Won’t Pass
The president’s proposal is merely a proposal. Congress must stamp it with its approving seal.
Palms will be greased… backs will be scratched… arms will be twisted… and horses will be traded.
The resulting package will exceed, substantially, the president’s $1.7 trillion proposal.
And so it is very nearly impossible to truly limit government spending.
As I have written before:
There are simply too many interests scheming to work the angles, to get a bucket in the stream, to get a snout in the trough… to catch a penny.
Is it any wonder then that the nation groans beneath a $36.8 trillion debt?
Or that its combined debt — both public and private — runs to $103.5 trillion?
It is no wonder whatsoever.
We the People Need to Look in the Mirror
It is easy to indict the fimble-fambling politician, it is true.
It is easy to say this rascal has sunk the nation so deeply in debt.
Yet as I have argued before: If we haul the politician into the dock… We the People must go with him.
That is because the politician is simply We the People’s mirror.
Could politicians humbug us into a $36.8 trillion debt absent our knowledge — or consent?
Only under a very, very strange species of democracy could he.
“Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre.
Alas: We the People of the United States have the government we deserve.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News